


All Falls Down

by crqstalite



Series: At What Cost [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Evolet Hawke, F/M, Spoilers for DA2, ask from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crqstalite/pseuds/crqstalite
Summary: People will only use you. They can’t be trusted.
Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke
Series: At What Cost [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946086
Kudos: 4





	All Falls Down

**Author's Note:**

> Only Major Character Death is Anders' in Act III.

At first, it’s hard to figure what makes her tick. Moreso what doesn’t. But always with her heart on her sleeve in the same moment, emotions always flickering over her expression like a flame. There is not one person in Kirkwall that doesn’t know that, there is not one person that accompanies her during the day that doesn’t already understand that.

Evolet Hawke is...an enigma at times. Guarded, careful. Stepping quietly around as if she’s forced to as not to disturb a sleeping dragon. Analytical, if not also quiet. 

And yet? Fenris still can’t wrap his head around her.

How is it that she keeps parts of her locked away with a key she has hidden somewhere, but nothing else is? How is it that everyone else seems to be more important than herself, as she takes hours and days out of her life to assist them with tasks she has no business getting involved with?

She wants to help every single person they come across on the street, she wants to never leave someone at the mercy of their attackers. They can never just turn a blind eye to anything. That is one of the few things she never has much difficulty thinking about.

Fenris lies in wait for the day that comes back to bite her. Not that he’d want anything to happen to Hawke, no, but he knows what she’s doing isn’t healthy. How often does he actually see her return to the estate? Sometimes the only response he gets is that Aveline needed help with this or that in a patrol. Sometimes Merrill needed something and she just had to give a hand. Or that she and Isabela had gone out by themselves to complete a task no one knew about.

Does the woman ever sit down to take care of herself these days?

He doesn’t get his answer, not for years. But little things start to shift under that smile of her’s. There’s an air of vulnerability when she arrives to his mansion a few odd times in that fateful year, but always a few words, phrases kept for herself. He never gets the full story, but then again he’d be a hypocrite if he asked the same from her but not from himself. Her company is always appreciated, and he never prys, but he has some concern for the woman anyway. It only gets worse the closer they grow.

What the terrifying bit is, is truly that she never considers that someone could be using her goodwill for their own gain. How often she doesn’t defer to her own judgement if someone makes a good enough case with her. He saw it with Petrice, saw how easily she coerced Evolet into helping under the guise the Chantry needed her. He saw nearly just how easily Feynriel’s mother convinced her to send him to the Circle for her own mind to be set to rest -- which he knows better than anyone that she’d hate to go there herself. However her only response is ever that they just needed her, and if she didn’t help, then who would?

He can think of about twenty people, all who’s names weren’t Evolet.

He sees the cracks starting to appear towards the end of her fourth year in Kirkwall. When her helping and trust in the City Guard towards the investigation into Quentin only leads to her mother’s death at the hands of a blood mage. The thought of one makes him shiver, almost enough that he doesn’t really want to accompany her much longer, but when he asks if she’s okay...that damn cheeky smile she gets whenever someone gets too close to the truth. The way she’s more despondent as the days afterwards drag on, but much too fast to cover it with a mask instead, refusing to acknowledge that she’s in pain.

They’re still on shaky terms then, while he might have her crest, they hadn’t spoken in weeks by that point. He doesn’t say what he needs to. Comforting her is out of the question -- he wouldn’t know where to begin.

When she discovers what Isabela had done, it is a day Fenris never thought he’d ever see. He’d never really thought Isabela would use her in such a manner, and yet, she just let’s her go. He sees her hands fall to her sides after she leaves, tome in hand and surely racing for the docks before the storm starts. Flames lick her palms before the mage puts them out, the only instance he’d ever seen her magic flare without true intention. Aveline had placed a hand on her shoulder, but Evolet had jerked it off, then running a hand through her hair.

“It’s fine. It’s fine! We can get them out another way, I wouldn’t just sell Isabela out, I couldn’t,” Her voice wavers before setting her face into one of slight amusement, “That one really came out of left field, didn’t it?”

“Hawke...” Aveline starts to chastise her, surely for the same reason he was about to, “This really isn’t a proper time to be joking about this.”

“I’m not ‘joking’ Aveline, it will be fine, as long as we keep level heads,” Her eyes are downcast as much as she tries to replace it with a smile, one he can see right through, “I just...wasn’t expecting Isabela to do that, is all.”

He doesn’t say anything, even though he probably should. If Kirkwall hasn’t been destroyed by the end of the night, he’d have to sit her down proper and talk. Since no one else would, and no one else seemed to see the lesson she was so desperately missing.

She’s in pain, and she won’t even say a word about it. She and Isabela had been friends if their interactions were anything to go by, and Evolet had put her trust in the pirate. He tentatively asks how she’s handling it shortly after her duel with the Arishok, but she brushes it off in favor of wrapping a bandage around his hand -- ignoring the question. A beat of silence that goes on much too long until she launches into another attempt at humor.

Her eyes are darker than usual. Her hands tremble more, and yet, she says she will still be friends with Isabela anyway. Because that is simply who she is. Good, loving and caring Hawke.

It wasn’t until three years after that does he finally get the conversation going, while they’re preparing for a trip into the sewers no less. Anders is walking some ways behind them, talking to Varric. He might as well say it now, away from prying ears and air his concerns, “Hawke.”

She looks over her shoulder, slight smile already on her face when he sighs, “Yes, Fenris?”

“Do you not wonder what the mage has us doing?”

“I...why would I? I wouldn’t want to remain possessed if I didn’t have to. If there’s a will, then surely there’s a way, right?” She asks, gently bumping into shoulder. He flinches, though he would admit it’s a welcome touch. And yet she’s ignoring every red flag that the abomination has set up since they left the clinic. In favor of what, remaining friends?

Mages. Though...she’s just naïve. Or ignoring the issue entirely.

“And if this isn’t it’s intended purpose?” Fenris queries. He has his own suspicions about Anders, one’s that were never properly taken care of over the last few years, mostly because he had begrudging respect for the man and second, because Evolet would never let him hear the end of it.

He knows that the people they go out with are using her -- whether for her status or the friendship she hands out like candy, or in her case, sovereigns to little street children, “You’re aware he is using you? Because you can not say no to him, it is no wonder he came to you first with this issue.”

A look of veiled shock crosses her eyes, yanking at her sleeve as if she’s considering his words. Good, she understands him then. She glances over her shoulder, then back up at him, “He wouldn’t do that, Fenris. I thought you were better friends with him, you don’t need to be so suspicious,” He bites the words back, but she powers on anyway, “What if I ended up possessed? If Anders had a way to undo it, to save my life, wouldn’t you do the same?”

He doesn’t answer that, enough so that he thinks she knows the answer. He’d never heard of such a way, though he could attribute that to not being a mage. Considering that she’d mulled it over herself though, and that Anders spoke of it like it’d never been done before -- to say the least he doesn’t trust this course of action.

And yet, she does. It never matters to her, she’s always looking for the best in people, even if they don’t deserve it. No matter just how tired she is, no matter just how much she should really take care of herself first -- she always puts everyone else before her. He can’t ignore either, with how much she toes the line between nurturing and foolish these days, so he does what he can so that she doesn’t end up paying for it later down the line. The mage and dwarf slip past him in the sewers, but Evolet pauses while he holds the trapdoor for her, “Please trust me, Fenris.”

“I am by your side, Hawke.” He means it, that part is entirely genuine. However, it is still unsettling how all she does is give him a grin and disappear into the depths.

Whether Evolet trusted him or not, no one could’ve expected something so miniscule and unsuspecting to cause the civil war that began in Kirkwall some weeks later. She’s beyond upset, beyond terrified when she has to choose a side between the Templars and Magi ruling the city -- Meredith has never been all there, but he’s grateful when she chooses her anyway.

And to deal with the mage -- the bloody abomination. She’s hesitant, and he can see the thoughts rushing through her head like a tidal wave in her shaky movements. Most likely wondering how he could ever do something this, mirroring her companions thoughts.

She trusts far too easily. Finally he’s able to put it in words, and...finally she sees the consequences of it. Fenris highly doubts Anders would’ve been capable of such a crime without her help. Without any of their help. Without her help, he doubts Merrill would’ve gone down her path with the Eluvian. Without her help, he doubts Isabela would’ve gotten away with stealing the tome all those years ago.

He can catch snippets of their conversation, his voice resigned and her’s shaking ever so slightly. Poised and graceful, as she always was, but she’s trying to convince him to help. Trying to convince him to right his wrongs and stand with her.

He refuses.

Fenris can pinpoint the exact moment her demeanor changes. When her trust has been snapped in two, and she sees the ugly reality -- the truth behind what she’s enabled.

Evolet surprises him when she unsheathes her knife from where she carries it on her hip. Swift and silent, it finds a home in the mage’s back, shoved in between his shoulder blades. Merrill gasps behind a hand, shocked by her friend’s actions, surely.

It’s destroying her on the inside, he knows that it is. Her eyes are downcast and watering when she eventually picks up her staff again, leaving the knife where it was. She doesn’t give it a second glance, and merely nods to Aveline’s suggestion to head to the Gallows. Once they’ve made it through the mage’s that are putting up a true fight on the Docks (he nearly feels some semblance of regret, leaving them behind like that. He tries not to look at Evolet, how she’s struggling to throw out her more lethal attacks against people who were just like her), it’s silent.

Evolet stands in the back of the small boat they’d procured, back turned from the rest of her party. Whispers, quiet discussing what they’d do when they got there. Merrill, softly sobbing into Isabela’s arms over the loss of Anders is all he can hear. Her arms are gently wrapped around herself, eyes out to the burning horizon when she leans against the mast.

He’s careful, quiet as not to startle her. And yet, there’s still a sad smile, quirking the corners of her lips up when she glances over her shoulder. It’s not real, he’s learned to see past it now, it’s a buffer so no one sees her at her worst -- or sees her for who she is.

He’s never seen her cry before. Not when her brother was taken to the Wardens, not when her mother died. She’d always been so strong, helping everyone else through their own tears, their own fears. She’d been there with him when Danarius had died, and had generously accepted him back into her heart. Evolet had been there for Merrill, when her Keeper died and stayed for days with the younger Elven woman in her home in the alienage, even if she looked genuinely exhausted herself. All these things, no matter the toll they took on her, she simply accepted.

Piled onto her were responsibilities beyond her years, piled onto her were problems she couldn’t always solved but tried to, piled onto her were people that depended on her like no others. And never did she ever show that true emotion that came with the stress. He’d thought she liked the guise, liked to act.

But with the fires illuminating her face, and the world forever changed, tears are slipping down her face ever so quietly. Her hands are wrinkling the clothes she wears, stained with blood and clutched like a grounding force. Ice is under her boots, if not a testament to just how little control she has over her will now.

Evolet goes to him, leaning her head against his chest first then her arms go around him, grasping at the fabric on the back of his tunic. He’s never been one for outright touch, but it’s comforting instead of unwelcome, regardless of the circumstances.

He chooses his words carefully, knowing he’ll only shatter her further if he doesn’t, “People will only use you, Evolet. They can’t be trusted.”

“I know,” She murmurs, “I know.”


End file.
